Business research news, tips, facts and sources from the Library research team at the London Business School Library.

21 January 2010

The 2009 Top Executive Compensation Report

It has been 3 years since the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released new rules for the disclosure of executive and director compensation. These rules were intended to provide shareholders and other readers of proxy statements with clearer and more consistent executive compensation data. They were also designed to provide companies with more direction regarding form and content for the presentation of executive and director compensation information. Companies reporting on executive compensation now must account for all individuals who held the positions of principal executive officer and principal financial officer, as well as the next three most highly paid executives—regardless of their start date during the calendar year. In addition to the new Compensation Discussion and Analysis (CD&A), the SEC requires more extensive executive compensation disclosures covering three broad categories: current compensation, equity related holdings that can be the source of future gains, and retirement plans and other post-employment compensation.

The recent financial crisis which resulted in the Government bailout of banks has once again placed executive compensation in the spotlight. There has been public outrage as CEOs and other executives deemed responsible for the financial crisis pocketed millions from bonuses and golden parachutes. CEO perks alone in 2008 amounted to an average of $364,041, nearly 10 times the median salary of a full-time worker. Not surprising then that CEO’s salaries have been under public scrutiny.

This annual study from the Conference Board examines salary, total cash compensation, total compensation, and the mix of compensation elements for the CEO and the five highest-paid executives for specific revenue and industry groups of US listed companies. In addition to descriptive details about the cash elements of compensation, this report provides information about stock and stock option compensation and the relationships between some key compensation elements.

The full report is available to current London Business School students, faculty, staff and alumni from the Conference Board Research database which can be found on the A-Z list of library databases in Portal.